I Am a Bookaholic...If You Like Me You Will Sell Me Books at 20 Percent Off...

Honest, I intended to get up at 8:30, but the bladder alarm went off at 8:23. Since I was still feeling a bit achy in the back, I took three ibuprofin and reset the alarm for 8:45—and then managed to doze through an hour of Miss Gladys Stevens of Omaha, Nebraska intone "Time to wake up, sir." (It's my Andromeda Strain alarm. Heh.)

After breakfast and dog walking (a beautiful day out, cloudy but not rainy cloudy, with a lovely breeze) and some minor tidying-up, it was approaching lunch time. I gathered up my Michael's coupons and went out to the garage and looked underneath the car. I have these plastic splash guards on either side of the front of the car, way under the front bumper. Since I'm so darn short, I can't see the front end of the car, and too often have run the very low front end over a curb and then have to back up slowly to get it off, hearing ominous scraping that is the plastic of the splash guard on concrete curbing. This forth-and-back motion yanked one end of the right splash guard off so it was dangling back early in the summer. What with end of fiscal year, I never got the time to take the car to the mechanic, so I taped it up with duct tape. I asked them to fix it yesterday along with the innumerable other things I had done to the car...

...flashback...Wednesday when I got in the car to drive home from work, my check engine light came on. I've owned Twilight for ten years and two months, and never in that time has the check engine light ever come on. So Thursday morning I drove it directly to the mechanic. It turned out it was the oxygen sensors that go with the catalytic converters. Yes, indeedy, I won't pass emissions inspection without those puppies working. So they fixed that, plus did the emission inspection, but there were other checks coming up that needed doing. I had it all done: brake fluid flush, cooling fluid flush, etc. They also said they'd fasten up the splash guard...

...but the duct tape was still on it. Did they forget? So the first thing I did was drive there to ask about it; he put it on the rack and said yes, they did fasten it back up; the problem is the piece of plastic that it's fastened to is broken. So even though there's some extra bolts in it, the thing would wobble back and forth when I drove at high speed. So they left the duct tape on. I could go by a Chrysler dealership and pick up the part, and they would put it on for me, but he couldn't find the part in a catalog. In the meantime, the duct tape was doing a good job.

Oh, great. Just what I want, a visit to Ed Voyles. I'm still pissed at them for the way they treated us when I was out looking for a car in 2004 (they basically ignored us).

Anyway, I went on to Barnes & Noble. It's Member Appreciation Week, so I get 20 percent off instead of ten! So I bought the new "Southern Living" and "Landlove" (the latter with a deliciously autumn cover), two cross-stitch magazines, and...okay...The Secret Journal of Ichabod Crane. I admit it; I'm hooked on Sleepy Hollow.

From there to Costco for gasoline and then to Michael's. I got some beads on sale for a special project that I can't start until my package comes from e-Bay, and two small sets of fall note cards. Oh, yes, and some purple duct tape. If I'm going to have duct tape on my car, the least I can do is match the paint.

By the time I got home it was around three o'clock. I had a little lunch and then popped Snowy (this sounds so easy—I have to catch him first, and his wings work really well!) into the little carry box. We went out on the deck, and I whistled and very soon the birds began to show up: the brave little brown-headed nuthatches, the chickadees, and the chipping sparrows, although only the former stayed around very long. Mrs. Cardinal chipped disconsolately from a tree but she wouldn't approach while Snowy, Tucker and I were out there. The big wide world, even with overcast skies, overwhelmed Snowy; his eyes looked like two huge black buttons in a little white face. Then we went inside and watched an episode of Lassie together (at one point Tucker got jealous of all the attention "Brother" was getting, and leaped into my lap), and he was just starting to get restless when James arrived home.

We had supper at the Panera/Chipotle combination on Barrett Parkway. James had the latter, myself the former, and we ate on the terrace out back. It was still mostly cloudy and delightfully cool, with just a hint of a breeze. Afterwards I made quick stops at Michael's for more project parts and JoAnn, which had nothing I liked, and the one thing I bought the coupon was useless for because it was already on sale. The sun was just setting as we turned south to use the Big Shanty Connector—the most useful road at Town Center!—to get to Barnes & Noble without having to hit the mess that is Barrett Parkway. By the time we got there I was tired myself, and disappointed that they still don't have "Best of British" anymore, but I made the mistake of wandering by the science fiction and mystery books. I picked up the Doctor Who novel Silhouette (featuring the Paternoster trio), a book of Rocketeer short stories, and the sequel to Murder at the Breakers, Murder at Marble House. I wasn't impressed by the first book, but it takes place in Newport—how could I resist? Home in time to see the very end of "The Krotons" on Doctor Who and then the season premiere of Hawaii Five-0 with a murderous drone.